Factors influencing nursing students’ decision to choose nursing

ABSTRACT

Background: Nurses are the “front line” staff in most health systems and their contribution is recognised as essential in meeting development goals and delivering safe and effective care (ICN, 2007). Nurses are in high demand not only in developed countries but also in developing countries like Malaysia. However, more than 70% of Malaysian hospitals currently do not have adequate nursing staff. At least 174,000 nurses need to be trained by 2020 to meet WHO’s nurse-to-patient ratio of 1200. The purpose of this study is to identify the main factors that influence the nursing students’ decision to choose nursing as their career. Method: A descriptive study guided by Self Determination Theory was used for this study. A 29- item questionnaire adapted from McCabe, Nowak and Mullen (2005) was distributed to all students in a nursing college (n=117). Results: The five main reasons for choosing nursing as a career were “ability to help others”, “training was provided on the job”, “ability to work closely with people”, “parental advice”, and “accommodation was provided while training”. The top three main domains that influenced the nursing students’ decision to choose nursing as their career include “travel opportunities of nursing”, “intrinsic attraction of nursing” and “immediacy of support on entry to nursing”. A total of 19 (0.2%) will not choose nursing if given a chance. The main reasons were “want to take another course”, “no time to spend with family” and “nursing is a stressful job”. Conclusion: The findings of this study provided valuable information regarding motivating factors which attract the current generation to join nursing. It is of concern that items representing nurses’ image were not rated highly